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Title image - BAI takes you to: Aconcagua
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Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

February 4, 2015 – The Dirty Dozen is Amazing

Well it’s about 5:30 PM on the 4th. We are coming towards the end of our first full day working out of our advanced Base Camp – Nido de Condors Camp over 5,500 meters high.

Just like at Plaza Canada, the first night here I don’t think people slept that great. The idea is tomorrow we will sleep better. We are at a significant altitude. It was pretty windy last night too. We are expecting the winds to increase as we climb higher. We’ve gotten excellent weather reports, thanks to the office, Leila and Deirdre. Guilherme is watching from Brazil as well. The weather reports have been coming in just fine.

We have decided to go for the summit on the 6th. That is the day after tomorrow which means tomorrow we will move up to Berlin Camp, our High Camp.

Now today, the winds went down a little bit in the middle of the day. Christina, Leslie, Melody, Trevor and I climbed about 200 meters above here to Nikki’s Rock. When we got up there I told the group the story about Nikki from Banff, an inspirational young man who came here a few years ago with us and couldn’t climb past Nikki’s rock. Later we discovered it was due to cancer in his lungs. His inspirational struggle with that over the years has always been in my heart when I return here to the rock we named for Nikki a few years back. He is in our hearts always when we are on this mountain.

Now the rest of the team, that would be Dena, Ed, Jim, Josh Joanne, Katie, Pedro, Elisa. Those members of the Dirty Dozen stayed down here with Osvi just for their own acclimatization. They walked around this broad, flat area organizing and getting ready for our summit push and they are doing great.

Right now everyone is crawling into Big Agnes. Maria will serve them Pringles chips, popcorn, cookies and tea of course.

Havier, Afrein and Alex who did a carry up to Plaza Berlin, our next camp, just returned. They are organizing a little bit. Now they are going to go down to Plaza de Mulas. They will go down and carry some rubbish, get some more supplies for our summit attempt and they will be back for the big climb. Only the Bolivians could move up and down the mountain like that. These guys are amazing.

The team is doing good. We do expect the wind to keep blowing.

Today was a special day for Christina. Her son Eli is having his 26th birthday today.

A lot of thoughts of family are going on today. Elisa and Pedro rushed down to Plaza de Mulas a couple of days ago to get the first internet message they could to see the good news that their son has been accepted into law school back home in Brazil.

Not only those two that I have mentioned but everybody is talking a lot about their family. We appreciate that people are watching our messages from the mountain. We are looking forward to filling you in on the adventure as we continue to go really high on this mountain.

I’m glad the entire team is still here. That is a remarkable accomplishment for this elevation.

The Dirty Dozen is amazing.

Views from Nido de Condor

Views from Nido de Condor

Our camp site – Nido de Condor

Our camp site – Nido de Condor

Christina, Leslie, Melody, Trevor and Wally went  on an acclimatization hike

Christina, Leslie, Melody, Trevor and Wally went on an acclimatization hike

Melody

Melody

Christina

Christina

Trevor

Trevor

Leslie

Leslie

Our acclimatization hike

Our acclimatization hike

Arrived at Nikki’s Rock

Arrived at Nikki’s Rock

Team on the climb

Team on the climb

Returning to Nido de Condor

Returning to Nido de Condor

Views of Nido de Condor on the way down

Views of Nido de Condor on the way down

Javier carrying loads to Berlin

Javier carrying loads to Berlin

Christina resting her feel by her tent

Christina resting her feel by her tent